


The edge of nothing

by harnatano (orphan_account)



Series: We are anathema [7]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 15:57:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4269351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/harnatano
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of the work about the Feanorians and the 7 Deadly Sins.<br/>Amrod and Gluttony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The edge of nothing

**Author's Note:**

> TW: eating disorders, alocholism. Also, if you’re emetophobic, there's a few mentions of it so be careful.
> 
> English isn't my first language, please forgive the grammar and spelling mistakes.

“Have you seen him, Tyelko?” Maglor's voice was worried, yet not as worried as it used to be, in the beginning, when his little brother's behavior had started to change.  
Hidden behind the door, Ambarussa heard a long meaningful sigh fall from Celegorm's lips, and soon, his voice echoed sternly in the room. “Not during the last two days.”  
“But he was supposed to hunt with you yesterday, what happened?”  
“Nothing actually happened. He just refused to leave his chamber. What did you want me to do? Force him?” 

Still hidden, the youngest winced at his brother's harsh tone. Celegorm was trying to justify his action – or to be more precise, his inaction, and Ambarussa hated that, this useless justification. 

“Of course not...” Maglor replied sadly, and Amrod heard his slow footsteps getting closer to the door, forcing him to step back, wrapped in the shadows of this corridor. “But you should have tried to talk to him.”  
“Do you really think I did not try? If you want my opinion, we are losing him, Kano. And--”

It was too much, Ambarussa didn't want to hear more of it. It was useless, pointless, and facing this reality was but another stab in his heart. Taking back the package he had dropped at his feet a few minutes before, he silently ran back to his chambers, like a frightened animal, a prey running away from its stalkers, and locked himself in the cold, large room. Too large for him. So large he could easily disappear in it. And cold, so cold. Since his twin's death, Ambarussa was always cold, as if the fire of his soul had been put out. 

With a urge he knew way too well, Ambarussa walked to the bed, unwrapped his package, and pulled out what he had so boldy stolen in the kitchens, like a miserable thief: Three bottles of a strong liquor from the Ered Luin (Moryo had recently met a dwarf who sold these smelly dwarvish liquor, and the Noldo was always happy to send a few bottles to his brothers.), a round loaf of bread, a few large slices of cheese, the rest of a chicken cooked for the lunch, a pot of fresh cream and so many biscuits and almonds and nuts that he couldn't count them.

The night was now falling on his brother's land, the last rays piercing through the Gap as Arien continued her road to the west.  
Ambarussa hadn't left his room for two days, he had mostly slept, or just sat next to the window, his thoughts and memories blurred, his body unable to react to any stimuli. Pain, hunger, sadness. Nothing seemed to affect him anymore. He was just there, half-alive, waiting for something that will never come, not before his death at least.

But now, after two days of complete starvation, with nothing but water to fill his empty stomach, the Noldo needed more. Oh no, it wasn't hunger. His body didn't know hunger anymore. It was a painful, unstoppable urge to fill himself. To fill this void left by his twin's soul.

Opening the first bottle, he sat on his bed in front of the victuals, and took a first long sip, his eyes lingering on the food.  
Maybe he could wait and see. Maybe he could not do it... He had done it so many times, he knew himself too damn well. And it was too late anyway. But what if... what if for this single time he could not do it?

For how long did he stayed there, staring at the food as the bottle instinctively found its way to his lips? It was but a reflex now, this movement of his hand, the few swallows of alcohol, the burning sensations that was rolling down his throat and little by little, chasing the shadows of his mind away.

\--

Back in Valinor, when Ambarussa was made of two, when he was complete, the meals were always moments of sharing, laughters and joy. With all their family, around the large table, their brothers making jokes and pranks, under the amused and benevolent gazes of their parents. Later, when they were hunting with Celegorm and layed on the fresh grass in Oromë’s wood, Huan jumping around them and trying to steal their food despite Tyelko’s loud protets, and the twins giving the dog a bit of meat or bread when their brother wasn’t looking. There were also these secret midnight snacks the twins liked to share in Telperion’s light, when they couldn’t sleep and decided to spend the night talking and laughing together. 

They also cooked together, cakes and biscuits. Sometimes, when their father was too focused on his work to remember to feed himself, the twins brought him a piece of cake they had baked together, and the gentle look Fëanor gave them was always the same, and it was stuck in Ambarussa’s mind. This serene gaze had disappeared from their father’s face long before he died, and yet, it was still haunting him. And concerning the silent meals they shared later, in these moments of doubts and suspicion in Tirion or Formenos, Ambarassa prefered to forget them.

\--

When he finally reached out to grab the bread, the bottle was almost empty, and he cursed himself for having only two left. Three wasn't enough anymore. His body was getting used to the alcohol and how fast it integrated the liquor now. 

After the first mouthful of bread, eveything disappeared. There was nothing in the world but himself, alone on his bed, safe, with all that he needed to fill the dark, painful void he was carrying within him.

His mind blurred with the first effects of the alcohol, he ate quickly, unable to stop himself, barely realizing what he was doing, barely taking the time to chew, as if his entire existience was depending on the food. As if it would, somehow, bring his twin back.  
Urgently, with movements he knew too well, he ate, grabbing the bread, and the biscuits, and the cheese, and the bread again with an uncontrollable impulse. Eating to save himself, eating to prevent himself from falling, eating without tasting. The taste didn't care, Ambarussa wasn't eating because it was good, but because it was the only way to salvation.

A sip after another, a mouthful after another, he filled himself with the necessity, the urge to live, to feel, to exist. To be something solid, something that would be settled to the ground. Not just the ethereal being, the ghost of the one he used to be, but someone again. 

And as he ate, as he drank, as he felt his stomach swelling up like a burning scar, like a heart filled with unspoken tears, everything vanished. The void, the voices in his head, the emptiness of his soul, the world around him. He was but a cup, insensitive and alienated, that was being filled with what will soon become a painful bitterness. But in that moment, it was just some matter, a lifeline, something on which he could cling on.

He was falling into this numbness, food and liquor rolling more and more painfully along his throat, when he heard some knocks on the door. The three rhythmic, long knocks which anounced Maglor. Always the same rhythm, always the same strength against the wooden door, always the same sound. It pulled Ambarussa off his dizziness, bringing back the sharp reality with an aching brutality. 

“Pityo... open, please.”  
Frozen on his bed, unable to speak and to move, his mouth full of bread and his throat burning, the youngest stared nervously at the door. If Maglor opened it, if he entered the room and saw him like that, it would surely kill him right ahead. Ambarussa would fall into shame and disgust and he could already imagine the look in his brother eyes, the disappointment as the horrible truth would strike him. No, Ambarussa wouldn't let that happened. 

Rushing off the bed, he ran and leaned back violently against the door in order to prevent his brother from stepping aside. 

“Pityo...?”  
“GO AWAY!” The youngest yelled, he screamed out of his burning lungs. “Go away and leave me alone!”  
“I just want to talk to you, you can't stay like this. You're destroying yourself... please let me come in.”  
Tears threatening in his eyes, Ambarussa didn't move, he closed his mind to the painful words he didn’t want to hear, pouring all his strength in his back to block the door. “I said go away! I don't want to see anyone!”  
“Please...”  
“NO DON'T!” he could hear the lament in his own voice, the sobs blocked in the back of his throat and tears rolling down his burning cheeks. “JUST GO!”  
Maglor didn't insist, but Ambarussa could still feel his presence behind the door. “Please Kano, leave me...” His voice was but a soft, aching, whining beg, now and he let himself slip on the ground. From the other side, he head a sigh and his brother footspets.  
Kano was gone.

And in the darkness of his loneliness, his stomach aching, burning and crying its pain after this over-feeding, Ambarussa felt a first sob leave his lips. Unwilling to let go, he swallowed back the one that instantly followed, and crawled miserably to his bed, just to grab the last bottle. 

He was full already, but his mind was still clear. And he knew it would be harder to throw up if he didn't drink more. Alone, leaning on the ground and tears painting his face, Amburassa drank slowly, silently, waiting for the inevitable collapse which, hopefully, would come soon. This black out in which he could hear his twin’s voice, feel his shadow beside him, sense his presence in his mind, against his mind. It was a lie, of coruse. Telvo was gone. But it was it was beautiful lie which could only be brought by this shameful, aching ritual. 

Nobody could save him now. Without his twin, he was nothing, barely a shadow which was trying to exist through this agony. 

His eyes shut, his mind filled with a comforting dizziness and his swollen stomach aching, he heard himself call for his twin.

The void within was filled now, he would be filled for a short while until the pain force him to throw up, to expel the bitterness of his agony, to get rid of his own disgust. Because disgust would come eventually, it always did, breaking the numbness of his mind to pull him into another torture chamber. One of the chambers created by his own mind, housed in his own mind. All dark and empty and sticky.

And there was no way out. The spiral was eternal, there was no stop in it, no way out, and his twin wasn't waiting for him at the end of it. It wasn't a journey through a sorrowful land, it wasn't just a way to escape from the painful reality. It was his reality. The absence of his twin, the absence of himself. He wasn't part of this world anymore. He was but an empty shell, foolishly filling himself in order to exist and to feel. To become something which was already and forever gone. Dead. He had been a part of something beautiful, something he had thought unbreakable. But of the other part, only ashes remained, and Ambarussa had disappeared, leaving nothing behind but a ghost who desperately tried to survive.


End file.
